The debut album from Swedish one-woman band Doctors and Dealers manages to be jaunty, spooky, self loathing and occasionally funny within the space of its 14 tracks and it’s a very good album for it.
Opener ‘Social Skills’ has a jaunty beat, which hides the self-deprecating lyrics and the high pitched vocal style really works. Lines like “a day with you saves my soul” are scattered throughout the album. The vocal style bears some resemblance to last year’s highly rated album by Alela Diane.
There are a some great songs about jealousy on the album, none better than ‘My Mother Was A Dancer’, which is about not being as talented as family and friends, having your own show and wanting to kill your favourite singer for being so good.
There is also the fantastically quirky ‘Steve McQueen’, which manages to hero worship Steve while reminding up that life would be boring if everyone was like him.
The album saves the best for last with the title track. It’s about getting drunk, losing control, losing your clothes, committing to stop and then doing it all over again. The whole lot won’t have happened to everybody but it will certainly remind you of a time in your life.
So buy this album, love it, remind yourself why getting drunk leads to bad things sometimes then go out and get drunk anyway, ’cause what the hell, it’s fun while it lasts.
//Gordon Neil